Fierce Kingdom (Phillips) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
Every choice the protagonist makes in Fierce Kingdom, the expertly made new thriller by Gin Phillips, is another precarious step up a gnarled decision tree. If she reaches for the wrong branch—snap! Darkness. Part of the book's great allure is that the reader feels as if this character, Joan, is working out each of her dilemmas in real time.… Our full visibility into Joan's moment-to-moment reasoning is also what makes this novel so clever and irresistible. Fierce Kingdom is a portrait of a mind at work under macabre duress. We feel almost as cornered and overwhelmed as Joan does.… Any more tension would be unbearable.… Seldom are the banal logistics of child rearing — Does Joan risk a trip to the vending machines to avert a hunger meltdown? How does she keep Lincoln occupied? — as riveting as they are in this book.
Jennifer Senior - New York Times


Of all the places where you really do not want to come across a couple of nut cases with guns, a zoo full of wild animals would be high on the list. Gin Phillips taps into that primal fear with Fierce Kingdom, a heart-thumping thriller about a mother who finds herself and her 4-year-old son trapped when two marksmen start hunting down visitors.… [Joan] gives new meaning to the term "tiger mom." Compressed into a little over three hours, the story flies by like a gazelle being chased by a lion and is easily consumed in a single sitting.
Marilyn Stasio - New York Times Book Review


A page-turning, adrenaline-soaked read.
Guardian (UK)


The premise of this novel will send chills down the spine of any parent — and keep them turning pages into the wee hours.
Newsday


Fierce Kingdom is gripping and almost impossible to put down.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution


Because we make fun of helicopter parents for the lengths they go to to keep perfectly safe children even safer, we can can forget that, for children, safety is a kind of love — and that makes Fierce Kingdom a terrifying book, but more importantly, a beautiful one.
NPR


By introducing the threat of violence, the book amplifies everyday domestic concerns, producing a kind of crystallization of the experience of parenthood.
New Yorker


A shot of pure adrenaline. But it’s not just the action that will keep you turning pages: Fierce Kingdom is a moving story too.
Entertainment Weekly


Gin Phillips’s heartpounding novel will have readers questioning what lengths a mother would go to in order to save her child …or someone else’s.
Real Simple


A powerhouse of a read that balances empathy and fear as it poses complex questions about human nature.
Washington Independent Review of Books


Fierce Kingdom is a novel that crackles with tension and danger.… Do yourself a favor and devour this book before the inevitable movie premiere.
New York Journal of Books


(Starred review.) [H]arrowing.… A searing exploration of motherhood at its most basic, this all-too-plausible horror story may haunt even readers with steely nerves and strong stomachs.
Publishers Weekly


Phillips skillfully captures the terror of the situation…. This literary thriller encompasses three terrifying hours in the lives of some zoo visitors and the gunmen hunting them, movingly conveying much of the action through the viewpoint of a mother and her young son. —Melissa DeWild, BookOps, New York P.L.
Library Journal


(Starred review.) Phillips manages to combine beautiful imagery with heart-pounding, nerve-fraying intensity. . . . Fans of literary page-turners, like Sunil Yapa’s Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist, won’t want to miss this.
Booklist


(Starred review.) Phillips’ characters are exquisitely rendered, her prose is artful and evocative.… Poignant and profound, this adrenaline-fueled thriller will shatter readers like a bullet through bone.
Kirkus Reviews